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PITTSBURGH — Sporting a pair of boxers and matching socks lined in flame emojis, JuJu Smith-Schuster is frozen in a operating movement beside a Pittsburgh freeway, his arms pumping and knees excessive.
Towards a grey backdrop, the infant blue billboard displaying his collaboration with MeUndies pops.
Like his commercial, the Pittsburgh Steelers huge receiver stands out as an enigma in a gritty city — a budding celebrity for the subsequent era enjoying for an old-school, hard-nosed franchise. Within the first two years after he was chosen within the second spherical of the 2017 draft, the 23-year-old receiver made a reputation for himself because the fun-loving sidekick to Antonio Brown.
“[Smith-Schuster’s] a high-energy man,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin mentioned. “He brings vitality to his work. He is jovial at occasions. That is been him since Day 1 after we drafted him a lot of years in the past.”
However fandom might be fickle and because the offense struggled in Smith-Schuster’s first yr because the No. 1 receiver after the Steelers moved on from Brown, public notion of the younger receiver began to shift. Smith-Schuster was criticized for doing issues consistent with his big-kid persona — like partying on stage together with his favourite YouTuber, simply hours after the Steelers’ loss to the Seattle Seahawks, and broadcasting it all live on Instagram. Later, he took warmth for posting a video that appeared to point out him speeding more than 100 mph in his BMW lower than two weeks after being recognized with a concussion.
Hindered by accidents and instability at quarterback after an elbow harm sidelined Ben Roethlisberger for a lot of the season, Smith-Schuster’s on-field manufacturing dipped dramatically. Lacking 4 video games, Smith-Schuster completed his third yr within the NFL with 552 receiving yards and three touchdowns — a fraction of his 1,426 yard, seven landing 2018 season. He had one 100-yard receiving recreation.
With so many obstacles, Smith-Schuster wasn’t having as a lot enjoyable. And people closest to him may really feel the change.
“He was positively going by quite a bit,” his mother, Sammy Schuster, mentioned. “He was calling me extra, we have been speaking extra. I used to be sort of anxious about him. This can be a man who, that is his ardour. It simply appeared prefer it was one factor after one other.”
However after a tumultuous season, Smith-Schuster is able to rebound. Getting into the ultimate yr of his rookie deal, he’s enjoying for his future with a Pittsburgh group dealing with tough selections after the season. Or he is giving a final audition for the opposite 31 groups earlier than free company.
And maybe even extra importantly, he is able to have enjoyable once more.
In a large receiver room of younger, versatile expertise, how does Smith-Schuster view himself?
The chief? The deep risk? The slot? The X?
The reply is easier than that: He is the enjoyable one.
“I’m positively the man that’s attempting to make everybody chuckle and revel in their job,” Smith-Schuster mentioned. “Making one of the best out of it. I feel there are days the place we’re drained or we’re down and really feel like we simply do not need to do it, however I’m the man that is available in and says, “Let’s go, man. Let’s have enjoyable at present, take advantage of out of it.’ Like I mentioned, we’re all the time lit.”
“He was positively going by quite a bit. He was calling me extra, we have been speaking extra. I used to be sort of anxious about him. This can be a man who, that is his ardour. It simply appeared prefer it was one factor after one other.”
Sammy Schuster, JuJu’s mother
It is true, enjoyable is his trademark. Earlier this yr he filed paperwork to trademark his catchphrase, “It is Litty.” And it was the inspiration for the flame emoji design on his MeUndies collaboration.
“It is all the time lit with him,” mentioned offensive lineman Zach Banner, who first met Smith-Schuster at USC. “It is all the time enjoyable. … he has requirements for himself and he has goals and he has objectives. It may be a Trojan factor.”
The carefree, big-kid mentality comes from rising up in a giant household. Born John Smith, the second-oldest of seven makes a degree of spending time together with his siblings.
In faculty, he’d come house and play Barbies together with his youthful sister. Now, the 2 make TikToks. Smith-Schuster additionally despatched a gaming system to his 15-year-old brother to allow them to play on-line, and he performs Fortnite together with his 9-year-old brother.
“He is a giant child when he comes house,” Sammy mentioned. “That is what I really like about him. As soon as he opens that door and he is on this home, it is like the whole lot else does not matter. He is not this massive soccer participant man. He is simply John the older brother that these children look as much as.”
Smith-Schuster grew to become a fan favourite as a rookie when he rode his bike to Steelers follow and had it stolen. Since then, he is constructed a model round being enjoyable and dwelling each Gen Zer’s dream: enjoying video video games, dashing round in cool vehicles like his Polaris Slingshot, and going viral on social media with his dog Boujee.
However final yr wasn’t enjoyable.
A season that began with the dying of huge receivers coach Darryl Drake felt prefer it acquired more difficult by the week. There was Roethlisberger’s harm, then backup quarterback Mason Rudolph‘s concussion. A pair weeks later, Smith-Schuster sustained a concussion and a knee harm in a loss to Cleveland, overshadowed by the game-ending brawl between Browns defensive finish Myles Garrett and Rudolph.
With the passing of Drake, Smith-Schuster misplaced one in all his closest confidants and a mentor within the Steelers group.
“It isn’t simply once I was damage, however even through the season, sure conditions that we have been coping with, I want I had time to speak to him,” Smith-Schuster mentioned. “I prayed, lengthy nights that I hope he answered my prayers.
“We all the time talked about life, whether or not it is household, pals, cash. Something you may consider, we all the time talked about it. As a result of on the finish of the day, soccer will solely final so lengthy. It is what lasts after is the stuff that we talked about.”
Tomlin stuffed a few of the void left behind by Drake’s dying, speaking with Smith-Schuster when he wanted it, however one thing was nonetheless lacking.
“[It’s] the conventional maturation of a participant who’s extraordinarily gifted and had loads of early success and at occasions confronted the pure adversity that the sport of soccer presents,” Tomlin mentioned. “Be it harm or harm to these round you. Or the eye that comes with being a top quality participant. JuJu could be very skilled, however he’s a comparatively younger man. He was 20 after we drafted him. It’s my job to help him in pure development and maturation, and that is a component of the job that I embrace.”
Sammy Schuster was 3,000 miles away, however she may inform one thing was flawed along with her oldest son.
Usually the carefree man with the thousand-watt smile shouting his trademark-pending slogan, Smith-Schuster was withdrawn.
“I am in California,” Sammy mentioned. “I can not be there for him. I can not hug him, I can not take a look at him and hug and inform him the whole lot goes to be OK. So I relied on our conversations and simply despatched him textual content messages nearly each different day to inform him, hold your head up and hold encouraging him. … Then it sort of acquired to the purpose the place once I was texting him, he wasn’t texting again. I am like, ‘What is going on on with him? He often texts me again.’
“There was simply one thing inside my intestine, we simply should fly on the market.”
When Smith-Schuster acquired again from follow earlier than the Steelers’ recreation in opposition to the Buffalo Bills in Week 15, Sammy and Lawrence, Smith-Schuster’s stepdad, have been sitting in his condominium. Startled, he grinned and hugged them.
He performed it off, however Sammy may learn her son. He wanted this.
They talked for hours that evening as Sammy up to date Smith-Schuster on their household. They did not point out soccer as soon as.
“I may inform simply by the look on his face that he was so pleased that we have been there,” Sammy mentioned. “He hugged his dad, hugged me, and we simply sat there and we simply talked.”
Later that weekend, they went to the Steelers’ Sunday evening recreation. It did not matter that Smith-Schuster’s knee harm stored him from enjoying. She simply needed to be there for him.
It was a disappointing season by almost each measure, and on the worst time.
Following their standard timeline, the Steelers may begin negotiating an extension with Smith-Schuster following the 2019 common season.
However after final season it was arduous to justify a monster deal, particularly with so many different costly contracts on the books. With per week left till the Steelers’ window for contracts and extensions unofficially closes with the beginning of the common season, it appears more and more seemingly that Smith-Schuster performs on the final yr of his rookie deal.
However that is OK with him.
“I am not anxious about that,” Smith-Schuster mentioned throughout camp. “With the whole lot happening proper now, you simply by no means know what may occur. As for me, I would like to be a Steeler, however on the finish of the day, I am right here to play ball, win video games for the workforce and for the group.”
Totally healed from the knee harm, Smith-Schuster spent his offseason getting ready for a make-or-break yr, and Sammy started noticing a shift in her son’s demeanor.
Earlier than a cease in Miami to host the JuJu Bowl — a Madden event live-streamed with Caffeine, a social broadcasting platform, in entrance of an viewers — he started figuring out with movie star coach Corey Calliet in one-on-one classes in Calliet’s garage-turned-gym. Smith-Schuster posted movies of his coaching on Instagram, for some time changing his standard feed of gaming movies.
He purchased his household a home in Yorba Linda, California, made plans to place a reimbursement for his siblings’ faculty funds and launched the underwear collaboration.
When he got here again to Pittsburgh, he frolicked using jet skis on the rivers and capturing off fireworks on high of a parking deck through the Fourth of July weekend.
And much more importantly, he is having enjoyable once more on the sphere. With Roethlisberger again, Smith-Schuster is beginning to look extra just like the receiver who earned a Professional Bowl nod in 2018 because the pair rekindle their chemistry.
“Everyone knows JuJu is a playmaker,” huge receivers coach Ike Hilliard mentioned. “Everyone knows that he’s going to be a man we get the ball to to jumpstart our offense in a giant manner. And he is wanting ahead to being JuJu.”
Lately in coaching camp follow, as Roethlisberger pump-faked, Smith-Schuster acquired open and caught a go from down the seam on a put up route. Days later, he snagged a landing go close to the aim put up in Friday evening’s scrimmage and celebrated by spinning the ball in the long run zone grass.
“He is positively again to being his outdated self,” Sammy mentioned. “He is excited in regards to the new huge receivers which can be coming in. I used to be speaking to him after the primary follow, and I mentioned, ‘How’s the whole lot going?’ He was like, ‘Man, I am so pleased Ben is again. All people, our workforce, we’re able to go.’
“I feel he is again.”
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